Dreaming of Reality: Revised
by Kichi Hisaki
Summary: AU: Dreams he couldn't remember. Demons after his life. A man who struck a deal with a devil. "This is reality. Live with it, or get up the courage to change it yourself." And an adventure to change reality. Best read in 1/2 page setting.
1. Chapter 1

Hello everyone! Kichi Hisaki here!

(breaths deeply) Gah, how long has it been since I've put something up here? Really? Can someone tell me the date? 'Cause I'm just too lazy to do it myself.

Anyways, This is _Dreaming of Reality_, the revised version. For you people who read all four chapters that I was able to post of the original, you'll notice that I stuck chapters 1 and 2 together and made them longer. I also added in some other crap that details in hints at Naruto's life. Personally, I like this so hell-of-a-fuggin' lot better. So, you people enjoy.

ALSO: Readers, you get the special opportunity to choose who Naruto gets to be paired with. I don't care if your a Het fan or a Yaoi fan, just pick a person. The romance is to ride a VERY TINY side car in this story, though, and won't be apparent until WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY LATER chapters. The rules of the vote are as follows:

You must be either logged in to leave a vote or leave an email address THAT EXISTS so I know exactly who has voted and who hasn't. If you don't do either, I will NOT count your vote.

To make sure everyone only votes ONCE, all votes will be made in a review for the FIRST CHAPTER. No votes will be counted if they are posted in other chapters.

There are certain people I will not allow myself to see Naruto with in a Romantic way in any shape or form. These people are: Jiraiya, Tsunade, Orochimaru, any of the past Hokages (gross, people!), Kyuubi (boy or girl) Iruka, Konohamaru's gang...and my brain hurts right now, so I think that's it. Anyone else is fine.

I'm also okay with the NaruOC vote, as well. Though if it is an OC, be prepared to probably not meet them until way later. Like I said, romance is riding a VERY TINY side car in this story.

If you also have another pairing you would like to see in here, you may leave that in your vote as well. Though that must follow the conditions of the original vote.

If you wanna flame me, go ahead, but if you're going to flame me about the romance bit once I finally write it just because you don't like the pairing, I WILL be posting a reply message back to you on the next chapter. Remember, you guys are voting for the pairing, not me. So if it doesn't turn out to be the pairing you want it to be, don't blame me, blame the other readers and GROW UP.

Plus, I'm only adding the romance bit because (WAY) later in the story, I have something extremely hilarious planned for Naruto with his romancing. I originally wasn't going to make Naruto paired up with anybody, but I suddenly got this ridiculous side plot running around in my head, and I liked it so much that I want to share it with you. So VOTE, people, VOTE! XD

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto in any way, shape, or form. I'm simply a fan (who, by the way, hasn't gotten passed episode 211, and has never watch or read Shipuden. But that doesn't matter, because this is an AU fic and I'm going to be writing things my way and you're going to FUCKING DEAL WITH IT.) that has taken some liberties and messed up the characters' lives in her head. They are running rampant through my head right now, and I'll give them back after they've gone through some extensive therapy. :)

Enjoy!

_Dreaming of Reality: Revised_

Chapter One

_He was running._

_Everything was dark as he ran, he sight obscured by blinding blackness. The only sounds being the echoed slap of his bare feet hitting stone and his harsh breathing. All around was nothing, and yet at the same time, he felt as though there were...things...surrounding him from all sides. He wasn't alone. 'Where am I?' he thought. He didn't dare speak, for somehow the illusion of him being invisible would be broken if he did. Something was telling him that he didn't want to be found. 'Where is this place?'_

_A little farther in front of his running form was a light. It was faint, as if it were from a single flame on a moonless plane. He squinted, and forced himself to run faster, if only to catch a glimpse of what it was. Whatever it was, he knew he had to see it._

_The moment a scream erupted around him as he got closer, though, made his blood run cold._

_A man lay on the ground. His bare body, given only the decency of a small cloth around his middle, was covered in welts and bruises, decorating his skin in a terrifyingly morbid painting of black and blue and yellow and violet and red. His breathing was horribly labored and heavy, and his face, eyes closed in agony, was contorted in absolute, monstrous, grotesque pain. As he tried to stand, a foot would suddenly collide with his bleeding side, and another horrible cry of pain would come from his chapped and bleeding lips._

"_Have you had enough?" asked a sickeningly sweet voice, dripping was sadistic love. A woman came creeping from the shadows, her tall and elegant body delicately covered with the tight and binding pieces of leather robes. She calmly walked up to the broken man in front of her, and prodded her clawed foot into a deep laceration near his neck. He screamed in pain again, and her laughter echoed sharply off the walls. She sauntered around him with a devious swagger, smirking to herself._

"_I could keep this up for all eternity, you know," she commented lightly, examining a rather nasty wound above the man's knee. "Just you, me, and my many servants here, in this dark, cold dungeon, beating you a thread away from death, and knowing you would live to see another day," she gave another laugh, softer this time, and kicked the man into a nearby stone wall; his scream came again, "and then we could start all over for another eternity."_

_He stood, watching in growing, sinking horror as the woman slowly and leisurely strode over to the man's trembling body. 'What is going on?' he thought, raising a hand to his mouth, trying to hold the rising bile. 'This is sick...'_

_The man raised himself from the ground with shaky limbs, teeth gritted in obvious pain, only to be shot down again. "Wh...what sort of...s-sick pleasure do you get out...of beating me...?" he panted through his teeth._

_The woman only smiled devilishly and raised a slim, beautiful hand. A whip was conjured in it. She raised it slowly. Her smile turned into a manic grin. And she brought it down._

_The man's eyes shot open as he screamed again, and his cerulean met his. (1)_

"Ahh!"

Naruto shot up in bed, panting feverishly. He sat there for a moment, letting his heart rate slow down. His mind was foggy as he slowly came to himself; it was always like this in the mornings, ever since a month ago. He would wake up screaming bloody murder to an empty apartment, his heart racing, and as he calmed, the dream—nightmare, whatever he was having every night—would disappear from his memory. He sighed once he was sure that his heart wouldn't start to beat wildly again, and glanced over at his clock.

"7:34 a.m. Great." He groaned as he climbed out of bed, wiping the cold sweat from his face. Once standing, he stretched a little to pop the kinks from his neck and back before grabbing a stray towel from the floor and heading off for the shower.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Naruto yawned as he walked up onto the bridge, waving a greeting to Sakura and Sasuke. He was too tired this morning to really say anything, and the strange dreams from last night weren't helping.

'Stupid dreams. I've been having them for over a month now, and I can't even remember them?' he sighed in his head, resting his arm on the railing of the brigde and plopping his head into a waiting hand to slouch. 'Just perfect...' He yawned again, and let his eyes slip closed. Naruto wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep again, he truly and deeply wanted to, but the harsh memory of Kakashi springing up with a surprise "Thousand Years of Pain" to wake him up was more than enough incentive to not try sleeping during the wait again. "I hate Mondays..." he grumbled quietly.

Sakura rolled her eyes at him. "Come off it, Naruto. It's not like it's the end of the world to have to wait here for Kakashi-sensei to show up on a Monday morning, is it?" she asked, crossing her arms in attempt to hold in her loud yawn.

Even Sasuke gave her a pointed look as she failed.

She huffed. "Well, alright, I admit that waiting here so darn early is pretty unproductive, but still. What can we do about it? We're only..." yawn, "Gennin..."

The short blonde groaned. "Yeah, but it would still be nice if Kaka-sensei would just get here on time for a change." He yawned. "I wanna go to sleep in my bed instead of waiting here with nothing to do."

Sasuke smirked. "Oh? Usually you're wanting to do a mission as soon as possible instead of sleeping."

A growl erupted from Naruto's throat. "Well, for your information, bastard, I had some trouble slee—" He cut himslef off quickly and turned away, not wanting his rival to know he'd been having nightmares. "Nevermind. You're not worth it."

Sasuke raised a brow, as did Sakura, but after a moment they shrugged and continued to wait in slience.

For an hour they waited, yawning every now and then, before their teacher fianllly showed up.

"You're late!" Sakura and Naruto shouted in unison, pointing angry fingers at Kakashi. He didn't even have the decency to be ashamed.

"Sorry, I was caught up with an old woman—she needed help getting home from walking her cat," he lied as he walked up, waving a lazy hand at his three students. "Glad to see you're all awake. I have a mission for us to complete."

Naruto immediately sprung up and glared at him, blue eyes flashing. "Don't tell me it's another low-class, stupid, kiddy mission. I'm sick and tired of those! I want something challenging for once!" he yelled, pumping a fist in the air. Kakashi smiled with his eye.

"Well, it's not a D mission, but it isn't exactly a B mission either..."

A groan was heard.

"...But it will take us about a week to complete. We're escorting a man to the borders of Suna to meet up with his partner. You have an hour to pack up your bags and meet back here. Our client will meet us here at noon, and we'll head out." Kakashi nodded to himselft as he pulled out his book and read for a moment. "I already have all of my stuff together," he indicated to the the small pack that was on his back, "so I'll be waiting here for you guys to return if you want to get here nice and early."

The three students nodded and began their walk home, each planning in their heads what to bring.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

It was on the way home that Naruto ran into Iruka just coming out of the Academy.

He gave a wide smile and jogged over. "Hey! Iruka-sensei!" he called, waving his arms above his head wildly. The young man looked up from the papers in his hand, the scar on his nose standing out on his dark skin. Iruka smiled when he saw who it was.

"Naruto-kun! Hey, what brings you over here? Don't you have some missions to do with your teammates?" he asked, reaching out an arm to give his student a half-hug. "And what happened to your tackle-hugs? I can't believe you're giving me a normal hug all of a sudden."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "What, you wanna be tackled to the ground? What if all those papers got stuck in some mud? Or if I tackled you into a wall and you got knocked out? Because if you wanna, I can easily go back and do this all over again."

A laugh was his answer. "Aa, no thank you, Naruto-kun," Iruka said, ruffling the boys hair.

Naruto snickered. "And I'm walking this way because I've gotta go home and pack." He grinned widely up at the teacher. "I'm going on a C mission to Suna!" he declared, pumping a fist into the air.

"Really? What are you doing?" the man asked.

"Escorting someone there. It isn't much, but at least I'm getting out of the village to do something, right?" he said, shrugging. His eyes went wide suddenly. "Hey, you don't think that since the last C mission I went on turned out to actually be an A mission—"

"Don't even think about that Naruto," came the sharp order from the instructor. Naruto snapped his mouth shut with a pout. Iruka sighed. "Look, I know you're eager to get out and do something, especially since you didn't pass this season's Chuunin exam," he paused to roll his eyes when Naruto scowled at the ground, "but you shouldn't be looking for that kind of excitement to prove yourself. Train extra hard, and complete all the missions you can with your team, and I'm sure you'll pass next year!" Iruka finished with a smile.

Naruto continued to sulk. "But I can handle it."

Iruka ruffled his student's hair again. "Well, I don't think I can handle worrying about you if you were to go out on an A mission," he said. He grinned. "I'm too young to be getting gray hair like your Jounin Sensei, don't you think?"

Naruto laughed loudly at the joke, mood lightening up. "Yeah, and I don't think you'd look good like that either." He smiled up at the Chuunin. "I'll try to stay away from the dangerous things just for you, okay? But I can't promise that the danger won't find me instead."

Iruka grinned. "It's either that you're a trouble maker or a trouble magnet, huh?"

"Yep!"

The two laughed. Naruto, once his giggling fit was over, looked over the instructor again. "Ne, ne, Iruka-sensei."

"What is it, Naruto-kun?"

"Do you think you could look after my plants for me while I'm gone?" he asked, peering up at the man. "They need to be watered every day, and you're the only I can trust not to ruin my place while you're doing it, so could you?"

Iruka gave an almost sad smile. "Of course, Naruto-kun," he said. "You can trust me."

A smile made it's way to Naruto's face, and he hugged the Chuunin tightly once more before running home. "Thanks, Iruka-sensei! I'll see you in a week!"

Iruka watched quietly as his ex-student ran home.

'You're a good kid. Why can't anyone see that?'

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Naruto looked at his stuff, looked at his ramen still tucked safely in his kitchen, glanced at his plants which he knew Iruka would take care of for him because he ran into the kind-hearted man on the way home, and then back to his stuff again. He nodded, and grabbed his pack, walked out the door, locked it behind him, and then set off toward the bridge. 'I still have half an hour to get there, so I'll grab something to eat.' His stomach gave a cry for ramen, but he told himself that if he stopped to get some now he wouldn't make it in time, so he settled for getting a bun at the store nearby.

"Oi! Ji-san! I'd like a bar-be-que pork bun, please!" he ordered when he walked into the store, ignoring the glares from the other people in the store. He man behind the counter gave him a leveled glare, which Naruto responded to with a wide, closed eyed grin, hand holding out the appropriate amount of money.

The man sniffed and tonged out a bun, wrapping it and set it on the counter. "That'll be 1,500 yen," the man stated. Naruto's grin faltered for a moment, but he put it back up with renewed force. His memory wasn't so bad that he had forgotten the price of the buns that was painted on the message board just outside the shop—750 yen; they were cheap, after all—but he knew better than to argue with the man.

"Aa, Ji-san," he chirped, hand reaching back into his money purse and pulling out a few more coins. He then placed the money on the counter, swiftly grabbed the bun, and left with store with a loud, "Thank you!" He didn't look back in, even though he could hear the muttered cursing that followed his exit.

'Just ignore them, Naruto. Someday, you'll show them.'

He was walking back down the road and had just taken his first bit of the delicious bun when he spotted a man having some trouble carrying a rather large backpack. He grinned and, not one to ignore someone in need of a bit of help that he knew he could give, trotted over. "Hey, Ji-san, do you need some help?" he asked.

The man turned to look at him, but in his surprise he toppled over, body become trapped underneath his pack. Naruto yelp when the man gave a cry of pain, then scrambled around to the man's side, lifting up the large pack. A few moments later, when the man was up on his own two feet again, he gave Naruto a grateful smile. "Yes, thank you young man." He laughed. "I'm afraid that with me injuring my back alst week and needing to go to another country today, I'm going to be needing dome more help than an escort."

Naruto blinked, then grinned. "Well, isn't this a coincidence? I'm escorting someone somewhere today." He shifted the large pack to point at his headband with pride. "I'm a ninja."

The man gave a warm laugh. "Well, you sure look like one! And with those muscles, I sure hope so. People need someone with your kind of strength!"

Naruto smiled. 'Hey, I like this old guy.' He stuffed his bun into one of his large pockets and stuck out a hand. "Uzumaki Naruto, at your service."

The man smiled. "I'm Kata Mayakashi. Nice to meet you, Naruto," he said, and shook Naruto's hand with his larger one.

Instantly Naruto's smile fell. A cold shiver went down his spine, and he could have sworn that the temperature outside just got a few degrees colder. Everything suddenly went dark for a second, and he blonde could see the Kyuubi pacing worriedly in it's cage. "N-nice to meet you, too..." he trailed off, taking his hand back. Some of the warmth returned to him, but most of the chill remained. He forced another smile, though the reason was completely different than back in the store. Something was off with the man, he could feel it.

"Well, Kata-ji-chan, which way do you need to go?" He inwardly hoped that it would be close to the bridge; he needed to get there soon. And the faster he could get rid of Mayakashi, the better.

Mayakashi pointed off to the right. "Just over to the bridge over there. That's where I'm supposed to meet up with my escort."

Naruto's smile faltered again. 'Great. I'm his escort.' He walked up ahead of Mayakashi so he could drop the smile. "Well, what do you know, Kata-ji-chan. I'm going to be part of the team escorting you," he said with fake cheer. He prayed that the man didn't hear it.

"Isn't that a surprise? Something tells me this'll be one fun trip!" Mayakshi gave a hearty laugh, and Naruto tried to laugh, but it only came out half-hearted.

'No, I don't think so, old man... Something tells me this won't be very fun at all...'

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Kakashi looked up from his book as Naruto came trudging onto the bridge, carrying a large bag and a half eaten bun in his hands with a man in tow of him. He raised a brow, then recognition came to him. "Ah, Naruto. I see you've met our escortee." Sasuke and Sakura blinked and raised their heads in surprise.

"Oh, this is the person we'll be escorting?" Sakura asked, tilting her head to the side in question. Sasuke just gave a small "Hn."

"Yes. Sasuke, Sakura, I want you both to meet Kata Mayakashi. He is the person that we'll be escorting to the borders of Suna," Kakashi gave a nod towards the man in greeting, then gave a long stare at the pack. "Are you really going to be bringing all of that with you, Naruto? We'll only be gone for about a week."

Naruto gave a small grunted as he set the large pack down onto the bridge. "This is Kata-ji-chan's pack, Kakashi-sensei. He was having some trouble carrying it, so I helped him out a little." He took a bite of his bun, grimacing at how cold it got. He was already cold enough. He shivered. "That's how we met."

Kakashi's eye didn't miss how Naruto shivered. 'It's still fairly warm outside, even if it is fall,' he thought. He shrugged it off, putting it in the back of his mind. "Well, since we're all here, why don't we set out early? Just to get a head-start on the day," he suggested. He picked up the large pack that the blonde had been carrying for their client while Sasuke and Sakura picked up their packs. "I'll carry your bag for you, Kata-san. I heard that you had some trouble with your back recently; I wouldn't want you straining it during our trip."

Mayakashi smiled at him. "Oh, thank you, Hatake-san, for being so thoughtful. That would certainly take a load off," he said, already walking ahead of the team.

Naruto shivered as Mayakashi brushed past him. The temperature dropped several degrees again. He turned to Kakashi. "Um, Kaka-sensei?" he asked, gaining the Jounin's attention before continuing. "What do you think the temperature is going to be tonight?"

Kakashi gave him a strange look. "Well...there's supposed to be a cold front coming in tonight in the area, so I guess it'll get pretty chilly outside." He rose a brow at his student. "Why?"

Naruto groaned inwardly. 'I should have brought more blankets with me.' "Oh, no reason. I'm just wondering. You know me! Hehehe..." He gave a quick, unsure smile at his teacher, then began walking.

Kakashi stared after his student for a moment. 'Hmm...'

Sakura looked back at him. "Come on, sensei!"

"Ah. Right."

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

_He was back again._

_The fire from a nearby torch was the only source of light in the large, dark, damp chamber. His heart was pounding in his ears as he watched with wide eyes, unable to look away, as the woman repeatedly slapped the man's face, leaving bright red marks which turned to bruises. The man was forced to stay upright, held by some unknown force, his only movement that was allowed being the sharp snapping of his head as he was slapped._

_The woman's beautiful face was twisted in a sneer as the man grunted in pain from each smack of her hand on his now bleeding cheeks. She held up her hand, and he expected her to slap him again, but he was suddenly released from his mysterious hold. He fell to the floor, hands coming up to feel his swelling face. Soft gasps of pain echoed around him as he pressed shaking fingers against the tender flesh._

_A smirk of satisfaction stretched across the woman's face. She reached down to grasp his chin tightly in her clawed hands, obviously enjoying the way he flinched, he noticed grimly._

"_Have you had enough, kind sir? Or would you rather we continue with the entrees?" she asked, stepping away to pace thoughtfully in front of him, caught up in her sick fantasies. "We could dish you up some whippings...or would you rather prefer some delectable slices of meat? Only the finest, of course."_

_He shivered deeply at her cold laughter. 'She isn't sane.... How can that man stand this?' he thought, clutching his bar body closer. He watched in horrid amazement when the man simply closed his tired eyes and bowed his head in submission. He wanted too scream at the man—'No! You can't give in!'—but the fear of being seen by the things invisible in the darkness made him still, and stay still._

"_It doesn't matter what you do to me," he whispered through clenched teeth, staring down at the stone floor of the dungeon where a puddle of blood was slowly beginning to form. "Just as long as you keep up your end of the deal."_

_He was slapped in response._

_The woman growled, the sound of that like an animal, her eyes flashing a familiar crimson. "What deal? The one where you serve eternity here in suffering, while he stays there and alive?" She grabbed him by his over grown hair, causing him to cry out in pain. "I'm keeping my end of the deal, you bastard. But remember this..."_

_She dropped him to the ground and kicked him roughly into a stone wall._

"_I'll always be delivering the worst of my torture—"_

_She took a stone and threw it at his abused body._

"_Because you so kindly decided to deprive me—"_

_She stormed over to pick up the torch, dropping it onto the man._

"_Of the one thing that actually kept me SANE in this world!"_

_He screamed in pain when the flames engulfed his body._

"No!" Naruto screamed, sitting up from his resting spot.

Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi, and Mayakashi all turned to stare at Naruto with wide eyes. They were sitting around a small fire they had made to make lunch, each holding a bowl of food. Kakashi set his bowl down (empty) and stepped toward the panting blonde with caution.

"Naruto? Are you alright?" he asked, hesitantly placing his hand on a shaking shoulder. He received a small nod in answer.

"Y-yeah... Just a bad dream... Nothing to worry about..." Naruto shook his head, as if trying to clear his mind. He grinned, though a little forcefully. "Heck I don't even remember it anymore. I guess someone was trying to steal my ramen or something. Heheh..."

Kakashi sighed. "Well, if you're sure." He guestured to the fire and the boiling pot above it. "The food's ready if you want any."

Naruto nodded and rushed over, trying hard to ignore the chill that had set over his already cold body and grateful for something warm to eat. "Don't mind if I do!" he said, smiling and digging into his prepared bowl of food. He blinked at the taste. "Wow, this is good. Who made it?"

Mayakashi smiled at him. "I did. It's a special recipe that my brother's wife came up with," he said, laughing. "Though I can't tell you the ingredients—it's a secret."

Sakura smiled at her client. "Well, whatever you put into it, it's certainly delicious. Right, Sasuke-kun?" She looked over at said boy expectantly.

He looked up at the group and rolled his eyes, gave a grunt, and went back to eating his food slowly.

There was a pause as silence followed Sasuke's act, and then Naruto glared at him. "Well, fine, be a prick." Turning to Mayakashi, he smiled, shivering slightly. "You'll have to ignore him. He's just a cold-hearted bastard with no feelings."

Sakura, hearing this, smacked Naruto with the ladle that she used to serve the food with, causing Kakashi to break up the fight, which in turn got Mayakashi to laugh.

The group was in the middle of their second day, heading off to the border of Suna, where Mayakashi was to meet with his business partner—it turned out that he was part of the NIN Corps: Weaponry Division. He was in Konoha for a while for the connections meeting that was based there that year. NIN Corps was a corporation that made, styled, and created shinobu utilities, such as clothing, pouches, weapons, and other things.

Kakashi finally settled for whacking his two students over the head with the ladle he snatched from Sakura. "You two need to settle down," he said in a disapproving tone, causing them to look guiltily at the ground. "As punishment for such immature behavior, you two are going to pack up the cooking equipment before we leave."

They nodded and sat down to finish their lunch. It was silent for a moment, then Mayakashi spoke. "So, what sort of mission do you guys do? I'm not a ninja myself, so naturally I'm interested," he said, wiping his face clean of soup.

Sakura smiled. "Well, normally, since we are Genin's, we just do D ranked missions: things like straighening out gardens or finding someone's lost cat." She giggled as she rememebered the last time they had to find Tiger. The other two members of the team gave piteous groans at being reminded. "This is our first C ranked missioin that we had in a long time. The last one we had turned out to be something of a disaster and suddenly turned to an A ranked mission."

"Oh? Why is that?" the client leaned forward, eager to hear more. Sasuke, silently observing from where he sat off to the side, noticed dimly Mayakashi was just a little too interested in what had happened. He scoffed inwardly. 'Probably just interested because it sounds dangerous,' he thought. But he paid a bit more attention to the man.

"Oh, the guy that we were escorting turned out to be a target for some hot-shot rich man. We had to put up with random attacks while we took him back to his country, and then we had to protect him there, too." Sakura sighed. "It was totally crazy."

Naruto huffed as he gulped down the last of his soup. "Sakura-chan! You didn't tell him the best part!" He grinned as he turned, forgetting momentarily the chill he got. "The hot-shot bastard that was targeting the old man that we were protecting sent these two really strong guys to kill him—I mean, they were almost invincible! But on the bridge that the old man was building, we had to face them one last time. The shorter one—his name was Haku—had trapped Sasuke-teme in this weird ice-mirror-thing, so I had to rescue him!"

A snort came from Sasuke. "You ended up getting stuck too, Dobe."

Naruto shot his rival an ugly glare. "Shut up! Don't interrupt me! ("Hn.") Anyways! Kakashi was fighting the other guy, so I don't know what all happened with them. Sasuke ended up getting beaten real bad, and I was talking to Haku a bit—he was saying something about protecting the other ninja he was with—and I was going in for a final attack, then he suddenly disappeared! And...well..."

Naruto trailed off and began to calm down as he remembered how Haku and Zabuza died, remembering the bitter-sweetness when Gatou came and was chased away by the villagers. And as he calmed down, he suddenly realized that as he was retelling the exciting adventure, he came closer and closer to Mayakashi, who was smiling excitedly at him. The chill came back.

He slowly stepped back from him, laughing nervously. "A-and then we saved the day! Yeah, that's us. The shinobi that saved the bridge! Heheh..."

Kakashi rose a brow at Naruto's suddenly stiff attitude.

Mayakashi grinned, leaning over to rest his hands on his knees. "Well, that's certainly an intersting story," he said. "But how exactly did Sasuke get beaten," here Sasuke glared across the fire at him, " and you end up still standing? I would expect it to be the other way around." This time it was Naruto glaring at him. Sasuke smirked. "No offense, of course."

Kakashi, noticing the tension in Naruto's shoulders, decided to intervene. "Maybe it wouldn't seem like it, especially after he decided to take a nap while the lunch was cooking, but he has an incredible amount of stamina. That would be my guess to why he lasted longer than Sasuke; Sasuke usually beast him in a spar," he explained, patting the blonde on the head comfortingly.

Mayakashi nodded, taking in the information dully. Naruto glanced up at him, noticing his brow crease in a frown. He shvered as another chill ran down his spine.

Sakura shifted at the sudden tension in the air. "U...so, Kata-san, what is it like to work in NIN Corps?" she asked, changing the subject. She didn't know just how grateful Naruto was toward her at the moment.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Mayakashi yawned as he woke from his slumber. It was a beautiful day outside, from what he could tell from the morning sky. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and everything was perfect. Yesterday, walking around the way he had, had been tiring, especially on his back. 'Hopefully, today will be better for me,' he thought with a tired smile and a pop of his spine.

He reached over to his pack and pulled out his wash cloth and an extra pair of clothing and proceeded to wash and change. He had a tiring say ahead of him—after all, the road to Suna wasn't an easy one. Might as well start out fresh. The journey was yet to be completed, and his business partner was waiting for him back at home. 'I'm on my way, Yoshika,' he silently called to his partner. 'Just wait a few more days, and we can finally complete our project.'

But as soon as he stepped out the hotel door, he was confronted with two ANBU ninja.

Mayakashi furrowed his brow, taking a step back as worry seeped into his mind. He knew that one just didn't see the ANBU wandering about Konoha, even if he was a foreigner—unless you were ANBU yourself or the Hokage, they didn't show themselves to you. He played it calm. "May I help you?" he asked.

One of the ANBU, the one with the cat mask, stepped forward. "Are youKata Mayakashi from NIN Corps?" he asked, voice giving nothing away.

Mayakashi blinked. "Yes... Why would you need to know that?"

The other ANBU, a hawk mask, nodded. "We need you to come with us, Kata-san. The Hokage wants to see you. Apparently, there has been a misunderstanding." The ANBU paused. "A major misunderstanding."

Mayakashi began to sweat. 'I don't understand. My records are perfect. I remember turning my request for an escort in yesterday. Did something happen?' "What sort of misunderstanding?"

The cat and the hawk looked at each other, as if question whether or not to tell him.

"Either you aren't really Kata Mayakashi, or Cell Seven is going to need help."

To Be Continued

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

So, that's Chapter One!

(1) While I don't have a beta yet (aren't really sure I want or need one (not trying to sound full of myself, just stating!)), I do try to keep all mistakes to a minimum, even with my Dyslexia. So I just wanted everyone to know that YES, I did write that sentence like that on purpose. If you all continue reading, you'll find out why.

Okay, so when I was writing the part when the team all met Mayakashi, my friends next to me were talking about food—really good food—and my verbal response was, "Mmmm..." Well, just so happens that when I said it, I also typed it. And because of that, I've decided to put in the _Dreaming of Reality: Revised Bloopers_! So, here you go, enjoy!

Bloooper One: Delicious...

Naruto groaned inwardly. "Oh, no reason. I'm just wondering. You know me! Hehehe..." He gave a quick, unsure smile at his teacher, then began walking.

Kakashi stared after his student for a moment. "Mmmm...."

Sakura paused and looked back at her teacher. "Um...Kakashi-sensei? What did you say?"

A wet spot grew on Kakashi's mask around where his mouth was with drool. Kakashi giggled. "Oh, nothing, Sakura-chan. Absolutely..._nothing._"

He giggled again.

Sakura stared.

She walked away. 'Naruto... I fear for your safety...'

End.

Be sure to leave a review, and be sure to vote, too! Your reviews will fuel my writing powers and make me write better stuff!

Love you.

Review.

Hearts.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello again! Kichi Hisaki here.

Thanks to the people that reviewed, and thanks for clicking on this story. I only got a few reviews, but they reviewed! And they each voted! So I'm happy. Thanks for reviewing, **Shika the brain**,** Hokage Hinata Hyuuga**,** KCWolfman**, and **Demon Naruto 117**

Just to let you people know, the vote is going to continue until I say so. That's why each vote must be put into a review for the first chapter. So keep the cotes coming--but that doesn't mean that I don't want you to review for all of the other chapters, either! I like reviews, they make me happy! And the happier I am, the more I'll want to write. The more I write, the faster I update (hopefully...). See the cycle?

BY THE WAY! For those of you who haven't seen _How to Train You Dragon_ yet, I strongly advise you to go and watch it! It's one of the cutest movies ever created, and the main characters Hiccup and Toothless are to DIE FOR. I've already seen it twice, and I'm thinking about going to see it a third time. :)

Again, if you've read the original first four chapters, you'll notice that I stuck chapters 3 and 4 together. So this chapter is about 14 pages long! :D

DICLAIMER: Look at chapter one.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

_Dreaming of Reality: Revised_

Chapter Two

Sasuke lay on his sleeping bag, hands behind his head as he stared at the stars above. It was different, looking at the sky here at night. In the village, it was near impossible to see anything other than the moon. But here, where there were no lights, no people walking the streets... The brilliant forest above reflected the forest below.

He drew in a breath of air. It was strange, how peaceful it was. Everything was strangely quiet. Nothing but the soft breathing of the boy next to him and the calm calling of the many insects and animals around the camp. In a way...it sort of reminded him of those precious few peaceful nights in the Forest of Death.

A frustrated frown drew itself across his face. The memories came crawling back to him. Gaara. Sound. Orochimaru. The curse.

The curse.

Unconsciously he placed fingers gently on the black marks, hissing when a prick of pain erupted through his neck. A quick glance around the small clearing made him sure that Kakashi, who was on watch, didn't notice. He sighed when he saw that the silver haired Jounin wasn't even around. 'Probably taking a walk to check the perimeters.' He withdrew his fingers and drew his eyes back to the night sky.

Beside him, Naruto gave a soft snore in his sleep, and Sasuke breathed in relief, thinking back to what the blonde knew about the mark. He was partly glad Naruto thought it was a bruise—he didn't need the idiot fussing over him. He got enough of that from Sakura.

At the same time, though, it frustrated him that his rival didn't know it was more than just a simple injury. It was obvious Orochimaru wanted him for something, and to get that something the snake gave him a curse—a lust for power. And he was partially considering taking that power to fulfill his goal.

There was no way that Itachi would just fall over for some terminal illness, after all.

But maybe, just a little...he wanted to stay in Konoha with the few people he knew—the few people he trusted. And he knew Naruto would help him make that decision. Even if that decision included a few punches to the face.

Sasuke sighed. How irritating. He could think about this later, back in Konoha. Right at the moment, sleep was needed.

Closing his eyes, he shifter onto his side, relaxing his tense shoulders. A few minutes passed, and by then he was drifting into the realm of dreams with no problem. But the sudden whimpering from the body next to him pulled him back into reality.

"Naruto...?" he mumbled sleepily, turning over to see his friend with sleep-ridden eyes. That is, until he sawthe state his friend was in.

Naruto was curled tightly in his thin blankets, face contorted in pain. His breath came out in soft puffs; they were visible in the night air (Sasuke thought it strange—it was a fairly warm night). Incoherent mumbling spilled forth from his trembling, pale lips.

"Hey," Sasuke called, now awake. "Hey, Naruto!" He reached over and shook him roughly—receiving a shock when a cold shoulder met his warm hand. 'Shit, he's freezing...!' "Naru—Dobe! Wake up!"

"No...stop..."

"Naruto, it's just a dream!"

"Stop it..."

"It's just a dream, nothing hurting you!"

"Don't touch... Don't touch him..."

'Him? He's not the one getting hurt...?' Sasuke shook his head to clear his thoughts. Now wasn't the time. "Dobe! Wake up!"

"Don't hurt him!" Naruto sprung up from his sleep, tossing the blankets. He was breathing hard, the fog of his breath clouding up his vision. He was silent for a moment, just breathing and staring off into space with hazy, tired eyes, and then he took a shaking hand to gather up his covers again.

"Oi. Dobe."

Sasuke's presence was suddenly made know to Naruto as the blonde flung around to stare wide-eyed at him. He blinked. "Wh-what're you doing up, Sasuke?" he asked, pulling the blankets closer around himself.

Sasuke realized with a blink that Naruto didn't know that the other was trying to wake him up a few moments prior. He frowned. 'Well, if he doesn't know, it doesn't matter if he ever knows...' "Your yelling woke me up," he said, making sure to put an irritated tone to it. He eyed the blonde's shaking form. "You look cold."

Naruto glared at him. "Well, excuse me for being cold, bastard," he growled flopping down to go back to sleep, back facing the Uchiha.

Sasuke sighed. Sitting up, he reached over to his pack. Silently, he pulled out a spare blanket and threw it at Naruto, who jumped when the offending object caught him over the head.

"Agh! Bastard!" he yelled, sitting up to see what was thrown at him. He blinked at the blanket, then turned to look at Sasuke, but saw that the raven-haired boy was already tucked underneath his own covers.

"...Thanks..."

"...Che. Dobe."

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Tsunade frowned, pacing her office. Normally, an imposter wasn't much of a problem and could be easily taken care of, if within reason; the memories of what she had heard about the Chuunin exam were a prime example of what could happen with impersonation taken too far. But in this situation, it was a different sort of problem that may have consequences not too unlike what happened with Orochimaru...

She took a deep breath and went back to her desk, picking up and unrolling a scroll from the surface.

According to Kata Mayakashi, he was in Konoha for a company board meeting. He arrived three months ago, partly for some vacation time and partly for some work. No, there wasn't anyone else with him, and no, he didn't really become acquaintances with anyone. And since NIN Corps was the only corporation that created and produced Shinobi equipment, there wouldn't be any companies or corporations to make enemies with.

But, so says the report, about one month ago, due to unknown reasons (be it thievery or lose of attention), personal possessions began to disappear. At one point, his NIN Corps badge went missing. Then, a few days later (after he had replaced it), it appeared in his wallet.

After the last board meeting, Kata received a letter from his business partner, Yoshika, saying that he was needed to come back to Suna for some production measurements. So he went to the missions office and requested an escort back; a simple D or C ranked mission, with Konoha being allys with Suna. Apparently, though, most of the Genin teams and Chuunins were swamped with missions during the open dates he wanted to return (Jounins were needed for some higher ranked missions)—all except team seven.

Tsunade pinched the bridge of her nose; a headache was coming on. She placed that scroll down and moved to the next one.

Though at first glance it may seem as if the situation with Kata had nothing to do with Konoha, except for the possibility of there being a thievery issue on the streets, looks can be deceiving. About three weeks ago, people in the village began to file complaints about needing repairs or that their crops and stock were being torn apart. Little thing, but complaints none-the-less. Coincidentally, all of the citizen filing the complaints and were in need of help were people who were affected—or knew people affected—by the Kyuubi no Kitsune attack nearly thirteen years ago. And each of these people who needed help of some sort specifically requested that the "Demon and its team" not help or aid them in any way.

She stood and tossed the scroll back onto her desk. Walking over to her window, she breathed in deeply, trying to calm her nerves. It was a full moon tonight—plenty of light for the ANBU to track Kakashi down and tell him of the situation.

From the information gathered, it was obvious that whoever Kata Mayakashi's imposter was, they were after Naruto.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Kakashi looked up from the pages of his Icha Icha Paradise and up to the sky. The darkness from the night was beginning to lift; the horizen was starting to tinge with a small amount of blue. Birds were waking and flying around in the air, looking for their morning meal.

He breathed in a deep breath. 'Guess I better start waking everyone up.' He stood and stretch his muscles, relishing in the small pops that came from his back. Just as he was about to start walking over to Sakura's tent, Mayakashi yawned from his bed roll, shifting around and blinking away his sleep.

Mayakashi smiled tiredly at the Jounin. "Good mornin'..." he said, sitting up and rolling his head to the side to take a kink out of his neck. "Hope you slept well."

Kakashi raised his hand in a morning greeting. "Nope. Stayed up all night watching the camp," he said, his one visible eye curving up in a smile. "Since you're up, how about you wake up the boys? I'll wake up Sakura."

"No problem. Just give me a moment..."

Once Kakashi had turned his back, Mayakashi grinned to himself. He silently stood from his spot on the ground and made his way over to the two boys, who were blissfully unconscious. 'Why don't I see how your dreams are fairing?' he thought, reaching out a hand and placing it on Naruto's forehead. 'I bet you don't like it when my sister gets that way, do you, Naruto?'

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

_She was whipping him again. The crocks from the whip were echoing around the stone chamber, resonating around along with the pained cries from the man, who had already succumbed to taking his serving on the floor of the large room. Blood was pouring from the many lacerations that covered his make, decorating him in streams of red, and making the puddle beneath him larger, bright, more fierce._

_As she raised the whip again, she let out a manic cackle of joy that carried over the scream of pain. "You better be glad that you were healed of the burns from yesterday." She grinned as she slammed the whip back down on his back, laughing again as he screamed. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to enjoy this experience with me. We can't have that, can we?"_

_He cringed as he watched the man scream out again from another blow. 'I wish I could do something. How long has this torture been going on?' he though as he saw again and again the whip brought down onto already torn flesh. 'I don't want to just stand here and watch as he gets beaten by this deranged woman...'_

_She lowered the whip and tossed it aside, allowing the man to catch his much need breath. Stepping over to him, she pulled a knife from the pouch resting on her hip. She studied it for a moment, crimson eyes taking in every flash of reflected light as she turn the blade over and over in her beautiful hands. "You know that I immensely enjoy watching you in pain?" she asked quietly, kneeling down in front of the man. "I've enjoyed giving you the pain you deserve and more ever since nearly thirteen years ago."_

_He gasped as he struggled to stare up at her. "I...knoew per-perfectly...well...how much...y-you en-enjoy giving me...pain..." he said, coughing up a small bit of blood._

_Suddenly, she slapped him across the face with the hilt of her knife, earning a crack as his head connected with the stone. "Don't EVER look me in the eye!" she snarled furiously, the pretty features of her face contorting in her fury. "I am the master here. You are just a stupid, pitiful slave that has no other purpose than to suffer at my hand." He expression changed—never for the better. A menacing grin slowly crawled around her face. "How about we remind you just what you are?"_

_She pulled him up to a standing position with a furious yank on his arm, causing the man to wail in pain as he felt his shoulder disconnect itself. Lifting her knife, she began to carve a words into his arm, taking her time to dig the resplendent blade deep into his flesh, if only to receive struggling and screams._

_H_

_U_

_M_

_A_

_N_

_Human._

_She cackled again, dropping the man onto the ground, kicking him with a clawed foot. "You are nothing but a pitiful human! A human! You suffer more, cry more, feel more, die more! You live a pathetic life! Humans are nothing but a nuisance to us."_

_She delivered a slap to his face when she saw him trying to get up again, and his nose connected with the floor with a CRUNCH and a sharp gasp. She sneered when she saw the bright splatter of blood decorate his face. "That's why my love attacked your beloved village—he hates human! And if it weren't for your actions, he would have wiped out the rest of the human race. The demons would have ruled over all!_

"_And just to let you know...Do you remember my brother? Toshike? Haha, yes, my dear brother has taken the liberty of going to your once home..." she said, smirking at the startled gasp from the pale man. "Yes... He's been there for at least a month now... Taking his time watching over the container of my love. Last I heard from Toshike, he was enjoying the fact that the container wasn't very loved by your people. And I thought that you wanted him made out to be a hero...?"_

"_H-how..."_

"_I have my ways," she whispered. "And that deal that we made..." She leaned down, knife ready and willing in her hands. "Just to let you know, your little Naruto isn't very safe at the moment..." She raised the knife, ignoring the tears that fell down the man's face. "Know that he is going to die, and my love will come back to me, Namikaze Minato!"_

_Naruto's eyes widened as he saw the demoness plunge the knife into Minato. His inside went cold; he couldn't think right; he had to do something, say something, anything—_

"MINATO!"

Naruto's eyes sprang open. The first breath felt like razors scraping the inside of his lungs; the tips of his fingers and toes were beginning to numb. Everything was so cold... He turned his wide eyes to stare at the source of his chill, and immediately screamed. He slapped the hand on his head away, sitting up and racing out of the covers.

"G-get away from me! Stay a-away, T-Toshike!" he screamed, tripped over a stray stone. His fear, his cold, his dream, everything was weighing down on him, pushing out his adrenaline, telling him to get away with every once of slowly ebbing strength he could possess. 'Help. I need help. Call for help!' "Kaka-sensei!"

Kakashi shot out of Sakura's tent from the first scream. The name "Minato" was ringing in his ears as he saw Naruto—pale, blue and shaking—stare frightened and afraid at the approaching Mayakashi. 'How could he know that name?' he though to himself, mind racing. His Sharingan burned behind his beadband. He threw the thought away for the moment. 'Never mind that—you student needs help!'

He raced over to Naruto, shocked to feel such cold air around the trembling body. Turning to face Mayakashi, he glared, a kunai ready. "What have you done with him, Kata?"

'Mayakashi' stopped and looked at Kakashi, his face twisted into a snarl, unlike the kind, middle-aged man that the team had gotten to know over the last couple of days. "Oh, don't worry, Hatake, he's alive and well," he said. He turned his attention back to the quivering blonde. "At least, for now."

Again, Naruto screamed, hazy eyes wide with fear. "Stay away, Toshike!"

Kakashi's eyes narrowed, barely registering Sasuke and Sakura coming near them. "So your name is Toshike... I've never heard of you. Some out-of-the-country missing-nin? And what have you done to Kata-san?"

Toshike laughed; it was cold, bitter, laced with malevolence. Nothing like a human's. "Oh, no. Wow, is this what all humans think whenever they come across someone they don't like? 'Oh, they have to be a missing-nin; they're gonna kill me!' Hahaha!"

Sakura gasped as she took in the situation, standing next to Sasuke as they got to Naruto's side. "Naruto!" The boy was shaking, frost gathering on his lips and hands, breaths of air coming out in large puffs of white fog.

Sasuke's eyes widened. 'What's wrong with him?' he thought, quickly taking in Naruto's swiftly freezing body.

Kakashi glanced over to the three, then back to Toshike. "I repeat: What have you done to Naruto and Kata-san?" he asked as calmly as he could, holding the kunai higher in threat.

The imposter grinned. "Oh, nothing," he said, straightening his back as his eyes took on a fierce crimson. "My sister just wants your precious student gone from the world of the living, and the love of her life back in her arms. I've yet to even do my part. As for 'Kata-san', he's still in Konoha." He frowned suddenly, shifting his unblinking gaze to the trees around them. He growled deep in his throat.

"But it seems as though I can't do my task today. Some of your human friends are coming this way," he said, then grinned again. "It's really a shame that I can't have too many witnesses—I'd love to be the one to deliver the finishing blow. But," he brought his hands up in preparation of making a few hand signs, "I guess I'll just let him freeze over. He'll suffer long this way." He quickly formed a few signs. Kakashi's eyes widened as he recognized them.

"Wait!"

Toshike disappeared in a whirlwind of leaves and dust.

Kakashi cursed as he tried to trace where the imposter went off to, but the chakra signature—what little he had felt of it—was gone. 'Damn it!' He flipped the hitai-ate off his other eye, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything that may connect to Toshike.

"Kakashi-sensei!"

He wheeled around, only to see Sakura and Sasuke kneeling next to a deathly pale and blue Naruto. It looked as if they had taken any blanket that they could find and wrapped them around his body, in hopes of keeping him warm, but the only thing the blankets were doing were keeping the inevitable at bay. He cursed as he ran to the blonde's side. Now that he was closer, he saw that flakes of ice were beginning to gather on his short eyelashes and the tips of his hairs.

"Shit. This isn't good..." he breathed. He pressed a hand to Naruto's face, shivering when a chill ran up his arms and down his back. "The blankets aren't enough. He needs body heat." He pulled the blankets off of his student for a monet, tossed his Jounin jacket to the ground, pulled the freezing boy to his chest, and then cover up the both of them. Turning his attention to Sasuke, he said, "Get a fire going. Make it as large as possible—we need to get him warmed up quickly."

Sasuke nodded; he went to gather up some firewood, using his chakra to boost his speed.

Sakura sat next to Kakashi, her expression worried. "How did he get like this?" she asked, reaching out a hand to take Naruto's flinching as his cold flesh met her warm hand.

"I have no idea." Kakashi frowned behing his mask. "Right now, we need to get Naruto warmed up a bit, and wait for whomecer that Toshika said was coming toward us. Hopefully, they'll help us figure out what the hell is going on."

Sakura nodded, green eyes worried. She was silent for a moment, then, "What should I do?"

"...Pray."

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

It was when the sun was first reaching its blazing tips past the horizon when their help arrived.

The ANBU came crashing almost silently in from the brush of the forest, and immediately Kakashi stood and ran over to them, still carrying the ever-growing cold Naruto. Sasuke and Sakura were right behind him, their expressions worried. "Thank the gods; I was hoping you were from Konoha," Kakashi said—the relief and worry apparent in his voice.

The ANBU with the hawk mask took a swift look around. "Is the one called Kata Mayakashi anywhere near here?" he asked.

Sakura shook her head. "No, he disappeared some time ago when he sensed you coming, and we figured out it wasn't who we thought he was, but..." She trailed off and glanced over to her blonde companion.

"Yes, Hokage-sama had her suspicions that whoever it was, they were after Naruto," the cat masked one said. "Kakashi-san, we will take him back to Konoha for medical aid. It'll be much faster than you and those two behind you."

At that, Sasuke winced. He hated being a hindrance, but he know it was true. However much he hated it...

When the hawk masked ANBU had Naruto in his arms, he flinched despite his ANBU training, the cold of the boy's body becoming suddenly apparent. "What the hell happened to him?" he asked, looking at the three.

Team seven shared a glance, unsure of what to say. The ANBU nodded. "Alright. Hurry back to Konoha. We'll take him to Hokage-sama." And then they disappeared, sprinting back into the forest.

Kakashi turned to face his students, his eye worried, but relieved, "Get your stuff together; dowse the fire; clean up, whatever we need to do. After that we head back home."

"Right."

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Tsunade was pacing restlessly in her office again. Bags hung underneath her eyes and her face was pale from lack of sleep. 'Come on...Hurry back to Konoha and tell me he's alive...'

Shizune stood in the doorway, looking over at her friend. "Tsunade-sama, maybe you should rest. Staying up all night won't do you any good," she offered, pointing to the couch.

The Hokage whipped around, her eyes furious. "No!" she yelled, slamming a fist on her desk. "I can't sleep—if they come back and something happened, what good will it be if I'm asleep? I need to stay awake; I need to be awake when they come back; I have to know if he's alright..." she faded off, whispering, and holding her head as if to clam the raging storm inside her.

A sigh escaped Shizune. "Well, at least have something to eat. If," she swallowed here, almost regretting the words coming out of her mouth, "if they come back and something did happen, what good will it do to have you collapsing before you can help Naruto-kun?"

Tsunade stared hard at the floor, then submissively nodded. "Alright. But nothing big. I don't think that I can handle a lot of food right now..."

Shizune smiled. "As you wish." She turned and walked out the door, calling behind her, "I'll be back in a few minutes with some food, so just relax and sit tight."

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

The ANBU rushed back to the village, jumping from tree to tree in haste. Naruto had stopped shivering a little while ago—that was a sign to speed up, though the village was still a good fifteen kilometers away. If they didn't hurry, he just might...

The ANBU with the cat mask glanced over to the Hawk. "Put some more chakra in your feet—if we speed up a bit more we could get him to Hokage-sama in ten minutes," he said, bringing his hands up. Donging a few quick hand seals, he summoned a small feline onto his shoulder.

"Whoa!" The cat let out a loud hiss as it was pulled from where it had been. Turning it's head to glare at the ANBU, it hissed again. "Any reason as to why you yank me away from my sleep an' force me onto your shoulder when you're going this fast, ya jerk?" it asked, clearly peeved.

The ANBU nodded. "Yes. I need you to go to Hokage-sama's office and tell her that we shall be there shortly—also tell her that the Uzumaki child needs immediate attention as soon as we return," he ordered. The feline blinked, then looked over to the other ANBU.

At the sight of the pale blue Naruto in the Hawk's arms, a loud yowl escaped the cat's mouth. "Whoa, what happened to the kid?"

"Koneko!"

"Alright, alright, yeesh. I"ll get off your back, no pun intended, mind you," came the sigh from Koneko. A without another word, it disappeared with a poof of smoke. As the Cat rolled his eyes underneath his mask, the Hawk glanced over to him.

"Do you think it was alright to trust Koneko with that job, Kiisuke?" he asked, hoisting Naruto up as the blonde slipped a little more. "He is...sort of young."

The Cat nodded. "Although Koneko is a little rambunctious and a trouble maker, he will do what is necessary." He glanced back at Naruto. One could tell that he was smiling under his mask.

"Just like Naruto, here."

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Tsunade let out a loud sight as she dropped her chopsticks down on her plate. "That sure was refreshing," she said, smiling slightly. Shizune smiled as she picked up the dishes.

"What did I tell you? This way, you'll be ready for whatever happens." She took the plate out the door and handed it to the ANBU. "Make sure that these get washed and put away," she ordered, and then returned to the office. "Now, how about you take your mind off of things by getting some work done, Tsunade-sama? You dropped all of it yesterday when Kata-san came in." She pointed over to the large and growing pile of paper work that lay on the desk.

Tsunade visibly wilted at the horrible sight and sighed. "Right, right..." Picking up her pen, she pulled a report in front of her. "But I can't make any promises with getting much work done."

A sudden 'pop' and a poof of smoke suddenly appeared on her desk, and Tsunade blinked and coughed as the smoke cleared. "Wh-what the hell!?"

A few hissing coughs filled the room as the smoke cleared to reveal a small cat-nin hacking on its own chakra exhaust. "Man, that's the last time I'm going to try and force my way home without the proper help... Ugh, I feel like heaving up last night's mouse..."

Shizune and Tsunade both exchanged confused glances. "Um...excuse me...kitty?" Tsunade tried, hoping to get the small thing's attention. Immediately, the feline blinked and straightened up, peering around the room with wide eyes.

"Huh? Oh! Yeah, which one of you chicks are the Hokage? Never met her, so I can't say that I know which one of ya are the right one..." It stared at the both of them, adjusting the hitai-ate on its neck with a paw.

"I'm the Hokage," Tsunade offered, an eye twitching. 'Who the hell would send this cat on any sort of mission?' "What do you need?"

The cat nodded and turned to fully face her, straightening its back to appear dignified. "Hokage-same, I am Koneko. Two ANBU sent me ahead of them to tell you that they would be here shortly, and that an 'Uzumaki' is with them, needing immediate attention," he said, then let out a breath. "And let me tell ya, he does not look good. All pale and blue."

Tsunade's eyes widened. "What!?" she exclaimed, standing up and knocking her chair back, startling the cat. "What happened? What happened to Naruto? Can you tell me?"

Koneko blinked at the questions. "Naruto? 'S that his name? Hmm...well, I can't tell you what happened ta Naruto—Master probably would have told me if he knew. From what I've seen, though, he's been ta the north pole, from the looks o' it."

Tsunade nodded at the information, then grabbed her coat off the coat rake behind her desk. "Shizune. Get me a medical team ready. I need people I can trust—you know which ones. I'll prepare a room; you get a hospital room ready for Naruto's stay," she ordered as she and Shizune swiftly walked from the office and to the hospital.

Shizune nodded. "And the ANBU?"

"They'll know to bring Naruto to the hospital."

"Right."

Koneko sat on the desk as the door to the room swung shut, blinking his eyes. He turned around and peered at the door, twitching his whiskers. "What makes that Naruto kid so important?" he asked to no one.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Kakashi led the shaken team back on the road to Konoha, his pack on his back and running swiftly with Sakura and Sasuke hot on his heals. He wished he could go faster, but with the level that the two students were at, this was the fastest that he could go without leaving the two behind.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw the determined expressions of his students and let out a breathy, shaky chuckle. It was good to see that they were worried for Naruto, even if the poor kid got on their nerves every now and then.

Sakura winced slightly as she landed wrong on her foot, but pushed forward, sending a small amount of chakra to the injured area to ease some of the pain. Panting, she asked, "How much further to Konoha, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Not much—at this rate we should get there in a good twenty minutes."

A grunt came from Sasuke. "Good—as soon as Naruto is a little better, I'm going to kick his ass for getting himself in trouble," he said, smirking a little. The comment was followed by little chuckles from his team mates.

'He's going to make it,' they thought. 'He's going to make it.'

And as they continued their speedy and long trek home, they repeated those words in their head like a mantra, like a prayer.

'He's going to make it.'

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

"His heart beat has slowed—temperature is still dropping!"

"Hokage-sama, breathing is too shallow!"

"Pump some air into him—his lungs aren't retracting right!"

"We're running low on chakra!"

"Switch out!"

"Hokage-sama, he needs to get his temp up!"

"Rub his arms with chakra in your hands! Get the blood flowing!"

"Heart needs another jump!"

"Damn... Quick, 3,000 volts!"

"Ready!"

"Stand clear!"

JOLT

"Nothing, Hokage-sama!"

"Again!"

JOLT

"Still nothing!"

JOLT

"Hokage-sama, we're losing him!"

"No, damnit! 7,000 volts!"

"What!?"

"7,000 volts, now!"

"Ready!"

"Stand clear!"

JOLT

"Nothing!"

"Again!"

'Naruto, I will not lose you to the curse...even if I have to stand here and continue doing this for days on end, I will not lose you!'

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

It was four hours later, after Team Seven had arrived at the Konoha Hospital—to find Iruka standing in the lobby, waiting after hearing the news from Shizune—when Tsunade came through the doors, sweating, pale, and tired. There were bags underneath her eyes, and everything about her looked as if she wanted to just drop dead. But the small smile on her face was more than enough to ease the hearts of the people waiting.

Sakura came running up to the exhausted woman, her green eyes wide with worry. "How is he, Hokage-sama?" she asked, the rest of them coming up behind her. Iruka put a hand on her shoulder, both in support and in need of support.

Tsunade breathed in deeply, taking in the air outside of the emergency room. "He's finally stable and warm. Right now he's under a dose of some drugs, to keep him asleep for a little while." She sighed, then glanced over the team. "Do you know what happened to him to make his entire body freeze over like that?"

Team seven looked at each, their faces blank of any answer. "No, not at all. We know is that Toshike—the name of the imposter—was after Naruto, but he didn't actually do anything to him. Said so himself. One minute the boy was sleeping, the next he was screaming his head off, telling Toshike to get away from him," Kakashi said, shrugging his shoulders.

"How do you know his name was Toshike?" Iruka asked, brow furrowed.

"That's what Naruto kept screaming before he passed out, and when I asked, the guy didn't say otherwise."

"Hmm..." Tsunade brought a hand up to her chin in thought, leaning on a hip. "Do you know how Naruto knew his name?"

"No," Kakashi replied, shaking his head. He looked over at Sasuke. "You were sleeping next to him. Did you hear Toshike say anything about his name to Naruto?"

Sasuke shook his head. "I was still asleep when Naruto started screaming."

"So was I," Sakura said meekly.

"Well, this doesn't make any sense..." Tsunade mumbled, messaging her temples; the lack of sleep was finally getting to her. 'I'm going to drown myself in sake when I get back to the office today...' "Perhaps Naruto knew who he was from the beginning?"

Iruka shook his head. "Maybe, but keeping information from an ally or his team doesn't seem like something he would do. It's just not the type of shinobi—or person—he is." Sasuke nodded in agreement.

"The Dobe would have pointed it out to us as soon as he could. He's too honest to do otherwise," he said, snorting.

"True," the other agreed. There was a moment of silence between them as they thought.

"Maybe," Kakashi began slowly, tapping his chin. "Maybe Naruto was suspicious of something, but he didn't exactly have anything to go by. He did seem rather lenient around the supposed Kata-san."

"Well, even then Naruto would have said something, don't you think? He's done something like that before," Sakura reasoned.

"...The Dobe's been acting strange recently," Sasuke said slowly. The others turned to look at them.

"What do you mean?"

He rolled his eyes. "You mean you haven't noticed?" At the silence that followed, he sighed and swept a hand through his hair, grimacing at the sweat. "He's been quieter than normal—not by much, but just enough to get me wondering what's going on with him. That, and pale. Like he hasn't been getting enough sleep or something in the past month or so. He's been having trouble sleeping, from what I've seen."

"Why do you say that?" Iruka asked.

Sakura's eyes widening as she remembered something. "Hey, Sasuke-kun, now that you mention it...do you remember that morning, when we were waiting for Kakashi-sensei to arrive and we were talking about, well, not waiting?" she asked. At his nod she continued. "He was going to say something when you said something about him usually wanting to do missions. Do you remember what it was?"

The memory played over in Sasuke's mind at the question. "Yeah..." he replied. "He was about to say, 'I had some trouble sleeping.'"

Tsunade frowned deeply at the implications.

Sasuke continue on with his explanation. "The Dobe's been napping at every brake we've taken on out mission, as I'm sure you've noticed. I figured maybe he was exerting himself too much with all the running around he was doing on the road at first. But..." he hesitated here, as if he wasn't sure he should be sharing this. From the worried looks on Tsunade, Kakashi, and Iruka's faces, though, he pressed on. "But last night, before I went to sleep, he was tossing and mumbling in his sleep. I didn't really understand much, but when I tried to wake him, he was freezing."

Even though his face was calm, his eyes betrayed the tiny bit of worry he held for his friend and rival. "I didn't think anyone could get that cold during this time of the year, even if they were sleeping outside."

Sakura frowned deeply. "This has been going on since before the mission..." Kakashi and Tsunade's eyes widened, but Iruka shook his head.

"No, I don't think so." The rest turned to face him. "I ran into him outside of the Academy when he was on his way home to pack. When we hugged, he wasn't cold at all," he explained.

Team Seven's brows furrowed as they thought, and then Kakashi blinked as a memory tugged at his mind. "I remember...right before we left on the mission, he asked me how cold it was going to be that night." He looked a the Hokage. "My guess is that it started before we left."

Sakura wracked her brain trying to figure out what had happened. "What could have changed between meeting Iruka-sensei and meeting up with us...?" she said to herself. Sasuke thought for a moment, eyes narrowing.

"He met that imposter. The one who was pretending to be Kata-san."

Iruka glared at the thought. "Then that means..."

Kakashi nodded. "Yes. The one called Toshike put him in this. But that doesn't make sense." Tsunade glanced at him. He shook his head. "Toshike had said that he wasn't able to do his task and that he hadn't done anything. So if it is his fault, why reveal his intentions and not admit to doing what he came to do?"

Everyone frowned. "None of this makes any sense..." Kakashi mumbled, and his student silently agreed with him.

Tsunade sighed and started towards the hospital doors.

"I'll need a full report on my desk by the end of today, Team Seven," she called behind her, rubbing at her tired eyes and not caring if they gave her an affirmative or not. "And Kakashi, if it's late I'm going to toss you off of the highest cliff I can find!"

To Be Continued

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Naruto's kinda out of character, but whatever. How would you react if you woke up with a creepy man who you just found out to be a killer-demon leaning over you, your entire body is freezing over, and you just watched some woman go bat-shit crazy on some poor man?

To be quiet honest with you people, the entire scene where Tsunade was in the ER...I completely made that crap up. I have no idea what happens in a situation like that, and it's not like people's bodies freeze over like that for no apparent reason in the middle of warm weather. So I could only come up with something that I hope makes sense. If I offended anybody who knows about ER stuff like that, I'm sorry.

So, yeah. I hope Iruka doesn't seem too out of place in there. Originally, he wasn't in that last scene at all, and I had to find a way to stick him in. Fortunately, he did play a small part, so maybe it wasn't too odd to look at, and I'm not the best at writing scenes with more than two or three people, so writing one with FIVE was actually a major challenge, especially with the fact that they basically all had the same expressions and emotions all the way through. Gah, that was difficult!

Here's another blooper, because when I was typing it up I realized that it was kinda funny.

_Blooper Two: What Have I Become?_

Tsunade let out a loud sight as she dropped her chopsticks down on her plate. "That sure was refreshing," she said, smiling slightly. Shizune smiled as she picked up the dishes.

"What did I tell you? This way, you'll be ready for whatever happens." She took the plate out the door and handed it to the ANBU. "Make sure that these get washed and put away," she ordered, and then returned to the office.

The ANBU stared down at the dishes in his hands and sniffed. "I thought that becoming an ANBU would mean going to more missions and protecting the village. Not...dish duty."

_End._

Aaaaand, there we have it. I hope you all have enjoyed the chapter_, _I know I enjoyed writing it! I'll see you guys next update.

Love you.

Review.

Hearts.


	3. Chapter 3

Hey, Kichi Hisaki here! Thanks for getting this far in the story. I hope you get to the end of this chapter and keep with me until we get all the way through (which will take a REALLY LONG time...)!

Also, thanks to **Amber Ice Fox** for being my only reviewee in the past week. (sigh) I know that I'm not all that popular yet, so I'm not going to let the number of reviews get me down. I'm hoping that once I get a few more chapters done I'll be getting some more, but until then, I just gotta be positive! (big cheesy smile)

ATTENTION PLEASE: I'd like to remind my readers that the votes for the pairings are still being counted, and I plan on holding the voting until I get up to chapter 20, at least. So please vote, and if you don't know the rules that I've laid down, please refer to author's notes in chapter 1. Thank you!

Well, this chapter is mostly some humor, and Naruto figures a few things out. Plus, you get to see more of Koneko! :) And be sure to check out the bloopers after the chapter! Put on your seat belts, hold onto your bucket of chicken or popcorn, grab your 3D glasses, and let's go!

DISCLAIMER: Refer to chapter one.

_* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *_

_Dreaming of Reality: Revised_

Chapter Three

Wherever he was, it was nice.

Naruto woke slowly, breathing deeply as consciousness came to him. A small smile drifted across his face as he snuggled deeper into the softness that surrounded him. 'It's nice and warm...' There was a soft breeze, he could tell, that was floating softly into whatever room that he was in, bringing with it the sounds and smells of Konoha during the early fall. There was a quiet, yet still noticeable, beeping sound somewhere to his right, which made Naruto frown a bit—'Am I in the hospital?' he wondered, turning his head toward the sound. He sniffed the air, and could just faintly smell the clean, almost too clean, scent of the Konoha Hospital. He furrowed his brow. 'When did I get here?'

He worked up the lazy energy to open his eyes, and the white popcorn of a Hospital room ceiling greeting him. 'Huh.' He glanced around, taking in the open window and the white curtains floating around it; the small vase with a Peony Orchid sitting delicately in it; the small heart monitor that was hook up to him sitting to the right of his bed; the IV that was taped into his left arm... Naruto lazy blinked his eyes. 'Huh. How'd I get here?' he thought, gazing around the room once more before shrugging. 'Meh. Whatever. It's warm in here...' And with that, he slipped his eyes closed and drifted off to—

'Warm?'

His eyes snapped open as memories came crashing back into him.

"_...We're escorting a man to the borders of Suna to meet up with his partner..."_

"_I'll try to stay away from the dangerous things just for you, okay? But I can't promise that the danger won't find me instead."_

_The man smiled. "I'm Kata Mayakashi. Nice to meet you, Naruto," he said, and shook Naruto's hand with his larger one._

_Naruto shivered as Mayakashi brushed past him. The temperature dropped several degrees again._

"_You are nothing but a pitiful human! A human! You suffer more, cry more, feel more, die more! You live a pathetic life! Human are nothing but a nuisance to us."_

"_Just to let you know, your little Naruto isn't very safe at the moment..."_

_His fear, his cold, his dream, everything was weighing down on him, pushing out his adrenaline, telling him to get away with every once of slowly ebbing strength he could possess. 'Help. I need help. Call for help!' "Kaka-sensei!"_

_Again, Naruto screamed, hazy eyes wide with fear. "Stay away, Toshike!"_

"_My sister just wants your precious student gone from the world of the living, and the love of her life back in her arms. I've yet to even do my part. As for 'Kata-san', he's still in Konoha."_

_And darkness._

Naruto shot out of the bed, heart racing. He looked quickly around, hoping to all hope that Toshike wasn't going to just appear out of nowhere. There was nothing but silence for a moment, the only sounds being the quickened beep of the heart monitor and his suddenly loud breath; a cloud covered up the sun for a few long, terrifying seconds...and Naruto slumped in relief. 'He's not here. I'm safe and warm and...

'Warm.'

'Warm?'

"I'm warm?"

He sat up a bit, looking down at himself. There were no goosebumps risen from his skin, no hair standing on end, and there was no shiver running through him every few moments. Blue eyes blinked in pleasant surprise, and then a wide, happy grin spread from cheek to cheek. He pumped a fist into the air with a "Yatta!" happy to finally be warm again.

"Oh, you're awake!"

Naruto turned to look at the door, where a young nurse was standing with a smile. She walked in and headed straight for the monitor. "It's nice to see you awake, sir! You've been sleeping for about two days now—if you didn't wake up today, the head nurse said that you could slip into a coma ("I was asleep for _how long _and I could have slipped into a _what!?_"). And when you came in, you were almost nothing but a block of ice ("I was a _block of ice!?"_)! It's a good thing that Hokage-sama got to you when she did. Some of the doctors and medic-nin said that if you had gotten here just a few minutes later, then you could have very well died ("I could have, have _what now!?"_). But since you're awake, you're safe."

Naruto gave a nervous chuckle at the information he had just received, mind reeling. "W-well...that's good," he offered as the nurse checked the monitor's charts. She smiled at him.

"Yep. A~nd your charts look good, so we'll just keep you in observation for the rest of today," she said, making a marks on the clipboard in her hands. She turned to face him fully. "Can you sit on the edge of the bed, please?"

Knowing this was normal hospital procedure, Naruto followed instructions and allowed himself to be poked and prodded and have lights flashed in his eyes. A few minutes later, the nurse gave him another wide smile, a "Clean Bill of Health!" and took his IV out.

"So, I can imagine that being fed through an IV isn't very filling. Want anything to eat?"

Naruto grinned. "That would be awesome," and not a second later his stomach gave a loud rumble in agreement. The nurse laughed.

"In that case, I'll be right back with some food. We'll stick with some miso and bread for the moment—once you're out of here you can eat whatever you want."

With that, the nurse was out the door and Naruto was left with his thoughts.

He sat there for a moment, just staring off into space. After a moment, he sighed. 'Well, glad to know I'm not in here for much longer,' he thought, and flopped back down on the bed. As he lay there, the memories of the mission slowly replayed in his head, and he furrowed his brow.

'Kata-ji-chan...no, Toshike. He was...'

"_...Do you remember my brother? Toshike? Haha, yes, my dear brother has taken the liberty of going to your once home..."_

Naruto frowned. 'He was that chick's brother. The one who was beating up that guy...but who was he again?'

"_Know that he is going to die, and my love will come back to me, Namikaze Minato!"_

'Right. Nami...kaze Minato. He looked familiar...' He glanced out the window in thought, and his eyes landed on the Hokage monument. He stared at for a moment, and then his eyes widened. "The Yondaime!?" he yelped, pulling on his hair in shock. 'B-but how? He died—ages ago! He can't be alive! Maybe it was all just a dream—'

_She studied it for a moment, crimson eyes taking in every flash of reflected light as she turn the blade over and over in her beautiful hands. _

"_Last I heard from Toshike, he was enjoying the fact that the container wasn't very loved by your people. And I thought that you wanted him made out to be a hero...?"_

No, it couldn't have been a dream. If it had, then Mayakashi would have stayed Mayakashi. And from the little he could remember of what happened after he woke up freezing cold, he recognized the crimson eyes that Toshike had that reflected the woman in his dreams. And there was the fact that Toshike had eventually admitted that Mayakashi was back in Konoha.

He groaned. 'So it wasn't a dream. But what did those people want with me?'

"_You are nothing but a pitiful human! A human! You suffer more, cry more, feel more, die more! You live a pathetic life! Humans are nothing but a nuisance to us."_

'No...not people. They weren't even human...!' Naruto sat up a bit, mind whirling. 'If they weren't human, then they were—'

"_That's why my love attacked your beloved village—he hates human! And if it weren't for your actions, he would have wiped out the rest of the human race. The demons would have ruled over all!"_

'They were _demons!' _Naruto placed a hand on his stomach—he could almost feel the seal that kept the Kyuubi in him burn. 'Not only that, but they had connections to the Kyuubi! Oh, crap!' His mind went up in a panic. 'They want to release the Kyuubi by killing _me!_'

"_And that deal that we made..."_

'Deal. The Yondaime and that woman—the Kyuubi's, uh lover or whatever—made a deal. What was the deal? What was it?' Naruto screwed his eyes shut, trying hard to remember what had happened.

_The woman growled, the sound of that like an animal, her eyes flashing a familiar crimson. "What deal? The one where you serve eternity here in suffering, while he stays there and alive?"_

Naruto frowned in confusion. 'Where did that come from?' he wondered. (1) 'Whatever. They made a deal...' He thought over what that demon had said. His eyes widened as the answer came to him, and he sat frozen in shock, his face paling and all he could hear was the pumping of his heart in his ears.

'They made a deal...

'...about _me._'

There was a knock at the door, and Naruto jolted. "U-uh, yeah," he called, but grimaced as his voiced cracked in his panic. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down, cleared his throat, and tried again. "C-come in!"

It was the nurse with his food, all happy and smiles. "Hey there! I've got your soup!" she said, stepping in. She set the tray down on the table by the bed, and turned to look at him. She frowned at him. "Are you okay? You look pale. Do you need to lay down again and wait til later to eat your food?"

He shook his head. "N-no. I'm fine," he said to reassure the nurse. She didn't look convinced, but she nodded anyway.

"...Alright. But don't be afraid to call if you need anything. The call button is right by your bed, you know," she offered, pointing to the button on the wall not a couple of feet from Naruto's head.

He smiled. "I'm fine really." He looked at his food and took in a deep whiff, grinning. "Mmm, that smells good! Thanks for the meal, nee-chan!"

The nurse smiled at him. "Your welcome, sweety. Enjoy," she said, and she left the room so that Naruto could eat in peace.

He sighed after she closed the door and slowly pulled his soup and bread towards him. 'I need to calm down,' he said to himself. 'Nothing good will happen if I jump out of here now and rush out the door on a rescue mission to no where. I just gotta sit down, eat, wait until I'm out of here, and then I can go talk to Baa-chan and see what I can do.'

He quietly ate his miso in silence, the normally great soup tasting rather plain and dull on his tongue.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

Naruto was bored.

Out-of-his-mind bored.

So bored, he was willing to _read_.

It was a few hours later, and though the nurse had come back to pick up his empty tray, after that, no one had come by the room. He had counted to cracks on the ceiling, moved to the cracks on the walls, tried to see what shape the clouds look like (he spotted one that looked an awful lot like Gamabunta), did a few chakra exercises, some sit ups on his bed (though after hearing the monitor start to speed up, he had to stop—he didn't want to stay in the hospital any longer than necessary), read a few of the magazines that were hiding at the foot of the bed, walked around the room several times, meditated (though that only lasted for a few minutes), tried to draw a picture of what he thought he would look like when he got taller, read the magazines again (this time, he went over them slowly and learned a bit about what patterns were in on the fashion market)...

He was bored.

Naruto groaned aloud, resting his chin in his hand. "How much longer do I have to wait to get out of here?" he asked to no one. "And sense I'm in 'observation,' shouldn't they be coming by to see how I'm doing?"

The silence was his only reply.

He sighed and flopped backwards onto the bed. He needed something to do, or else he was going to go insane. Well, either that or try to break out of the hospital. But in order to do that, he needed some proper clothes. Going outside in nothing but his underwear and a hospital gown wasn't the most fashionable way to walk the streets. 'I'd look like a crazy person.'

Naruto stared at the ceiling.

The ceiling did nothing.

He sighed.

_Scritch. Scritch._

Naruto blinked and sat up a bit. 'What was that?' he wondered, glancing around the room. After a few moments, he laid back down. 'Hn, it was probably just my imagination...'

_Scritch. Scritch._

He sat back up again, eyes narrowing. "What is that noise?" He listened closely.

_Scritch. Scritch. Scritch._

The door. Naruto glanced at it, tilting his head to the side. 'If somebody's at the door, why the hell don't they just knock?' "Hello?" he called.

Nobody answered.

He furrowed his brow. "Hello? If someone is out there, they can come in," he called again, louder.

_Scritch. Scritch._

He shivered, and an irrational fear seeped into his mind. 'It's just a joke. Probably Kiba trying to scare you by getting his dog to scratch at the door.' He gave a nervous chuckle, climbing off the bed. "Kiba, if that's you, just get in here!"

_Scritch. Scritch._

A whimper nearly escaped his throat. He stepped toward the door, slowly approaching it. "K-Kiba, stop playing around!" 'He's out there, laughing his stupid ass off, I just know it...!'

The scratching continued.

He gulped, hand on the handle of the door. He waited for a moment, trying to calm his mind down and get his hands to stop sweating. There were a few tense seconds, heart pounding in his ears, and a trickle of nervous sweat slowly rolled down the side of his face...

He swung open the door...

"Aha!"

And was faced with an empty hallway.

Naruto slowly stared down hallway, his panic beginning to climb at a faster rate. "H...hello...?" His voice echoed down the hallway eerily, and the sound came drifting back to him in a distorted, horrifying way. He bit his lip, muscles tensing and eyes nearly crying as his breathing picked up. 'I-if there was nobody out here to begin with...then it was a...a...'

"GHOST!"

He dashed back into his room, door slamming behind him, and threw himself underneath the covers. He couldn't hear anything but the screeching in his mind—'Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmiGOOOOD I'm being stalked by a GHOST!'—as he trembled fiercely underneath the blankets, trying to do his best imitation of a statue that couldn't be stalked by ghosts, because statues couldn't be stalked by ghosts, right (Of course, he was failing miserably, as statues didn't tremble with the ferocity of a leaf stuck in a tornado.)? He jumped wildly when he felt something on the bed _move_, making a small area near his feet weigh down the blanket he was currently cowering under.

Tears welled up in his eyes. 'IT FOUND ME!'

He sobbed silently, tears cascading down his face as he felt the weight of the ghost move around his form and towards where his head lay. 'Oh, Kami-sama, I'm so sorry for every prank I've ever done, and I'm sorry for drawing on the temple gates when I was seven—even though I swear that was my best work of art—and I'm sorry for pretending to be you on Halloween, and I'm sorry for not eating my vegetables, and I'm sorry for hiding the headache medicine from Baa-chan when she had that really bad hangover, and I'm sorry for eating all that ramen when I was supposed to be fasting—oh, wait, sorry, I take that back! I'm sorry for saying that I'm sorry for eating all that ramen when I was supposed to be fasting, and I pray that you take pity on me and reincarnate me as a—'

"Mreow?"

The pleading in his head stopped at the sound. Naruto blinked, tears stopping in their tracks. 'Huh?' Slowly, ever so slowly, Naruto pulled the covers back to see what had meowed at him.

Before his eyes sat a small, tortoise-shell calico with bright green eyes, it's long tail flicking curiously behind it.

Naruto gave a chuckle of relief. "Ahaha...It was just a cat..." Sitting up so that he was sitting cross-legged on the bed (which was when he realized that with all his panicking the heart monitor had slipped from his finger—'Oops...'), he lifted a hand and softly scratched the cat behind the ears. A gentle purring rumbled from it's chest. He laughed again. "Well, that certainly better than some stupid ghost," he chirped. He looked up towards the ceiling. 'Kami-sama, thank you for taking pity on me like this, because really, I don't want to be reincarnated as a—

"Hey, yer that Uzumaki kid, right?"

Naruto froze. Slowly, he looked back down at the calico, eyes widening in horror. Green eyes blinked up at him.

"Ya know...the 'Naruto' that nearly froze ta death a couple'a days ago? Yer him, right?"

A nervous giggle bubbled forth as his face paled to a stark white.

He screamed.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

"I really hate you, you know."

After about five minutes and twenty-three seconds of screaming his head off and throwing every possible object that was able to be thrown at the invading "Ghost," nurses swarmed the room to find out what was going on, sure that there was a patient dying or being attacked. When they saw that is was Naruto and a nin-cat, they tried to calm him down, only to have a hysterical blonde start to throw things at them as well. Twelve minutes and forty-six seconds later, Iruka arrived at Konoha Hospital to find the staff in a massive panic about one of their patients gone wild and calling available Medic-nins in to try and subdue the patient. Iruka, finding that the patient in question to be Naruto, growled and stormed into the hospital room, where a crazy and distraught and crying-very-loudly-about-ghost blonde immediately tackled him and order the irritated teacher to take care of his "Ghost" upon sight of the scarred man.

About seven seconds after that, Iruka smacked him in the head and told him to shut up and calm down.

Some time later, the nin-cat was able to introduce himself to an angry and hissy Naruto as Iruka was apologizing profusely about everything that the blonde had done during his stay. The cat, now revealed to be Koneko, was padding around him in the hospital lobby, with the Genin scowling down at him.

Koneko gave a grin (could cats do that?) up at him. "Aw, you don' mean that. And I did say that I was sorry, right?" said the cat, wide green eyes giving a amused twinkle in the florescent lights of the lobby.

More scowling was Naruto's answer, and the cat sighed, plunking down onto the floor in defeat. At that moment, Iruka finally was able to leave the front desk, breathing deeply in irritation towards the young ninja. "Naruto," he started, saying the blonde's name slowly to gather his ex-student's attention, "As much as I love yelling at you and trying to get you out of horrible situations that shouldn't have happened in the first place, how many times do I have to tell you that ghosts do not exist and therefore you shouldn't be afraid of them?"

At Naruto's pleading, guilty look, the teacher went on. "And furthermore, I know you've met some of your sensei's ninken, so why hasn't the thought of nin-cats crossed your mind when this one," he pointed at the innocently purring cat, "talked to you?"

Naruto stuttered and flushed in embarrassment. "I-it was just that I heard some scratching, Iruka-sensei, and I went to the door to check it out, but there wasn't anyone there, so of _course_ I thought it was a ghost trying to eat me, and I starting apologizing to Kami-sama, and then I saw the cat ("I have a name, you know," Koneko muttered) and I was relieved for a second, and just has I started telling Kami-sama that I didn't actually want to be reincarnated as a—"

He snapped his mouth shut as Iruka's glare hit the "If You Don't Want to be Stuck Washing Toilets and Academy Black Boards for the Rest of Your Miserable, Non-Ninja Life You Better Shut the HELL Up Now" level and he bowed his head in apology. "I'm sorry, Iruka-sensei."

Koneko snorted quietly to himself on the floor at their feet. It was unfortunate, however, that Iruka had heard it and the calico was then graced with the teacher's horrifying glare. The cat suddenly felt the killing intent rolling towards him in engulfing waves, and he did his best impersonation of the tile he was laying on.

"And what are _you _laughing about, mister?" Iruka growled at the cowering cat, crouching down to loom over the small animal. "If _you_ hadn't shown up, you little, idiotic CAT, then Naruto wouldn't have even been in this situation! I can't even _begin_ to imagine what sort of chaos this could have escalated to if I hadn't shown up—if the nurses had gotten ahold of some of the Medic-nins, do you have any idea how much trouble that Naruto could have gotten into? And I'm pretty sure that whoever your _master_ is would be _so _happy to find out exactly _who_ caused this mess once everything calmed down, don't you think?" (2)

Koneko's striking green eyes widened with each word, his ears falling back and tail, poofing dramatically, curling submissively down and around his body. His fur stood on end, and he looked very much like he wanted to just have the white tile underneath him to open up and swallow him whole so he could never been seen again by the horrifying monster known as the Chuunin Instructor Umino Iruka.

He gulped audibly. "I-I just wanted to make sure that this kid was a'right, y-you know? I-I didn't mean to cause such a big mess, and I just—I mean—I, uh, didn't..." The cat swallowed again, whiskers twitching. "Don't tell my master...?"

Iruka continued to glare, and both Koneko and Naruto were starting to worry that the Chuunin would never calm down, but then the scarred man sighed and sat back, no longer looming menacingly over the cat. The two whiskered ones breathed a sigh of relief, heart stopping their pounding in their chest.

"I only want you two to understand the consequences of your actions," the teacher explained, standing up and brushing off his pants. He then pointed at Koneko. "You, cat ("My name is Koneko!"), look young, and need to learn to be more careful." Looking upwards, he gave Naruto a look. "And you, Naruto ("gulp..."), just...try to stop believing in ghost. What if somebody got ahold of that information (even with how childish your fear is), like an enemy shinobi, and used that against you?"

"_Just to let you know, your little Naruto isn't very safe at the moment..."_

The coloring of Naruto's face went from an embarrassed and scolded look to a shallow pale and slightly sick expression. Chocolate brown eyes picked up on that immediately and Iruka frowned in concern. "What is it, Naruto?"

The pre-teen shook his head, eyes down for a moment as he thought. "Ano...Iruka-sensei..." he started quietly, and even Koneko looked up at the blonde in concern. "About what happened...I think I need to talk to Baa-chan and..." He grew a frustrated look on his face and he clutched his hands into fist, his blue eyes flashing upwards to look Iruka in the eye. "It's really important, and it's about the mission, and I really need to tell her because something terrible happened—"

Iruka placed a hand on his ex-student's shoulder in comfort, causing him to shut his mouth. He may not spend the most amount of time with the blonde, but even time away from the kid didn't stop him from being able to read the emotions that he kept well hidden from onlookers. He could see, even though the blonde was doing everything he could not to show it, that he blonde was feeling guilty about something.

He gave a the shoulder a squeeze. "Listen, Naruto," he said, bending down a bit to look Naruto in the eye. "I can tell whatever it is that you need to tell to Tsunade-sama is important. The thing is, right before I came over here to help you get discharged, the Hokage asked me to tell you that although she knew you would likely have something to say about what happened on the mission, but she wants you to rest for today. Tomorrow, in the morning, that's when she'll listen to what you have to say."

Naruto objected, shaking his head. "But, Iruka-sensei! This is important—!"

"I know it is, Naruto," he interrupted. "I can tell. But she's concerned about you, especially since you could have died. I am too. And I know you feel guilty about something," Naruto shook his head again in denial, "but if you go running off to try and fix whatever it is that's making you feel guilty now, when you just got out of the hospita, isn't safe."

"I feel fine, Iruka-sensei!"

"I'm sure you do, but this is just in case. Still, we don't want anything happening to you. And I'm sure that you don't want to spend _extra_ time in here or in bed when you could be doing something useful, right?"

Naruto bit his lip. 'I need to talk to Baa-chan...' He stood silent for a few minutes, and when he nodded Iruka knew he had won the argument. He smiled apologetically. "Alright. Now, I want you to go home and get some rest, okay? I'll even go with you to Tsunade-sama tomorrow morning, since I don't have any classes. 9 am sharp, okay?"

Naruto nodded again, leaning forward to hug the teacher. "Okay, Iruka-sensei."

Koneko could only watch with silently observing bright green eyes, wondering what was going on.

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

The sun was starting to set outside, and Naruto was finally making his way home. He felt a little sad because he was given very strict orders not to eat ramen, but he lived with it. Something told him that while Iruka was watering his plants at his home he also took the time to stalk his pantry up with some _healthy_ dry foods. He yawned, stretching his arms up over his head, reveling in the fact that he was in some normal clothing and not in a thin, not-very-comfortable hospital gown, and popped his back. 'Man, I didn't think I needed to sleep, but now I'm soooo tired...' Another yawn escaped his throat.

It was a few minutes later, about twelve blocks away from his place, that Naruto noticed a little green-eyed something out of the corner of his eye.

Discretely, he glanced backwards, and he caught the quickly hiding tip of the calico cat's tail that had scared him half to death in the hospital. He scowled. 'Not again. I don't wanna deal with him right now...' He huffed lowly and marched on, determined to make it back to his apartment. He twitched a bit when, not even a minute later, he saw the cat again. A growl rumbled in his chest.

'Goddamnit...' Naruto clenched his fist swiftly turned a corner.

Koneko, in his brilliance, took all of three milliseconds to think his actions through before bounding off after the blonde and raced around the corner, only to painfully slam wet-nose first into Naruto's sandles. A loud yowl echoed down the street, many people pausing for a moment to glance toward the sound before going back to their own business. The calico slowly got up from his collision, scrunching up his face and twitching his whiskers in pain. "Oww...."

Naruto glared down at him, arms crossed. "Why the hell are you following me?" he demanded.

Green eyes widened dramatically, and the cat stepped back. "Wha—!? You knew I was stalking you?"

A tick appeared above the blonde's eye. 'He admits to it?' "Of course I knew! You're about as discrete as a rectangular rock!"

Koneko hissed. "Well, damn! I was wondering why Master never let me do any stealth missions with him..."

"I feel for whoever has a contract with you. 'Cause that's just sad," Naruto said, not feeling the least bit sorry when the cat hissed at him again. He scowled back. "So anyway! Why are you following me! I dunno about you, but I'm going home to sleep, and I do NOT want you there when I trying to!"

The cat sat back on its hutches, looking up at the blonde. "You're interestin'. And I heard some o' the stuff that Hokage-sama was talkin' about with that Pig Carryin' Lady, and a little of what tha docs were sayin', and then back there with that teach'..." Koneko shrugged (how that was possible, Naruto will never know, but the cat did it). "I wanna know what's goin' on. I'm curious."

Naruto snorted. "Curiosity killed the cat."

Koneko hissed again. "No it didn'. Whatever the cat was curious about killed it, and since then us cats have been takin' curiousity very seriously. I happen to know for a _fact_ that you haven' hurt a single animal from talkin' to the local birds and dogs," he said smartly, voice carrying a smirk to its tone. "So I think I'm safe."

The tick spazzed a few more times than necessary. Naruto turned on his heel and resumed walking home. "...I don't want you following me home. That's final."

"Aw, com'on! I wanna know what's happenin'! You should be thankful towards me, anyway, cause I just 'bout saved your life!" Koneko 'mreow'ed, springing after the blonde.

"Pfft, whatever. From what I heard, it was the ANBU that came to help my team, not you."

"I did! I'm the one that told the Hokage tha' you needed some help!"

"Really? Who would send you anywhere, Cat-that-needs-to-learn-not-to-scare-shit-out-of-hospital-patients?"

"Hey! That's a low blow, you—!"

"'Needs to learn not to _what, _Koneko?"

The two of them stopped at the deep, slightly muffled voice. Naruto frowned, cocking his head to the side and looking behind him, wondering who had suddenly joined in on the conversation. He was maybe expecting someone who knew the cat, maybe the cat's shinobi master, maybe it's vet, he didn't know. What he was not expecting, however, was the sight of a tall man, dressed in nothing but black and a white mask with red markings of a feline covering his face from view.

His eyes widened.

ANBU.

Koneko, it seemed, knew far too well who this person was, and all of his fur had poofed out and his ears lay flat. He gave a nervous mewl. "U-uh...Master...what a surprise...eheheheheh..."

Naruto's eyes widened further. 'Master!?'

The ANBU crossed his arms and tilted his head just slightly to the side. "Yes, a surprise. Not only do you did you skip out on training, you disappear from the compound, you're stalking someone again ('Again?') and I hear that you've caused _quite _the commotion at Konoha Hospital." He leaned forward, loomingly, just slightly. "Care to explain?"

Another nervous mewl escaped from the calico, who had lain himself flat on the ground. "Um...no. Not really..."

The Cat shook his head and knelt down, picking up the small cat by the scruff of his neck. He held Koneko up in front of him, almost bemusedly. "I can't believe you sometimes." He stood up again, calico held firmly in his arms and bowed to an amazed and confused Naruto. "I apologize for all of the trouble he has caused you."

Blue eyes blinked several times, mouth gaping slightly. Finally, Naruto got his brain to work and he was able to form some words. "Uh..no problem...?"

There was a small moment where the ANBU nodded at him, Koneko mewled for help in the man's arms, and Naruto could only wonder where his life was going if he was suddenly being stalked by the nin-cat of the elite and being bowed to by said elite, and then there was a poof in which after it had cleared, leaving Naruto alone on the slightly busy street.

He scratched his head in bewilderment before heading home again.

'Maybe I'm more tired than I thought...'

To Be Continued

* ~ _ ~ * ~ _ ~ *

And there's chapter three! Wow, lots of Koneko and Naruto interaction. And look! I've managed to fit Iruka into all three chapters so far! I wonder if I can keep it up until the big mission comes up...

Okay, I'm not planning on making the ANBU a main character, but Koneko is going to be clinging himself to Naruto's side until the very end. So I hope you guys like him, because he's here to stay.

And look! Three—count it—THREE bloopers. Read them and weep.

Or laugh.

I'm kinda hoping for the laughs.

_Blooper Three: Interruptions_

Naruto turned to look at the door, where a young nurse was standing with a smile. She walked in and headed straight for the monitor. "It's nice to see you awake, sir! You've been sleeping for about two days now—if you didn't wake up today, the head nurse said that you could slip into a coma—"

"I was asleep for _how long _and I could have slipped into a _what!?_"

"And when you came in, you were almost nothing but a block of ice!—"

"I was a _block of ice!?"_

"It's a good thing that Hokage-sama got to you when she did. Some of the doctors and medic-nin said that if you had gotten here just a few minutes later, then you could have very well died—"

"I could have, have _what now!?"_

The nurse snapped.

"Will you stop fucking interrupting me!? Jeeze! I swear, all men are the same!" And she burst into tears, running from the room, wailing something along the lines of "Gai-sempai, why!?"

Naruto blinked in confusion.

_End._

_Blooper Four: Lovers_

'Deal. The Yondaime and that woman—the Kyuubi's, uh lover or whatever—made a deal. What was the deal? What was it?' Naruto screwed his eyes shut, trying hard to remember what had happened.

_The woman growled, the sound of that like an animal, her eyes flashing a familiar crimson. "What deal? The one where you serve eternity here in suffering, while he stays there and alive?"_

Naruto frowned in confusion. 'Where did that come from?' he wondered. 'Whatever. They made a deal...' He thought over what that demon had said. His eyes widened as idea came to him, and he sat frozen in shock, his face paling and all he could hear was the pumping of his heart in his ears.

'The Kyuubi's lover...?'

"Oh, eww, gross!"

_End._

_Blooper Five: Reincarnated as...?_

'Oh, Kami-sama, I'm so sorry for every prank I've ever done, and I'm sorry for drawing on the temple gates when I was seven—even though I swear that was my best work of art—and I'm sorry for pretending to be you on Halloween, and I'm sorry for not eating my vegetables, and I'm sorry for hiding the headache medicine from Baa-chan when she had that really bad hangover, and I'm sorry for eating all that ramen when I was supposed to be fasting—oh, wait, sorry, I take that back! I'm sorry for saying that I'm sorry for eating all that ramen when I was supposed to be fasting, and I pray that you take pity on me and reincarnate me as a—'

God waited up in Heaven, wanting to hear what the young blonde wanted to be reincarnated as, but alas, the blonde was interrupted by the cat. "Oh, well. I'll just find out later."

So he waited for a little while, and then his heavenly ears picked on Naruto's voice again.

"...heard some scratching, Iruka-sensei, and I went to the door to check it out, but there wasn't anyone there, so of _course_ I thought it was a ghost trying to eat me, and I starting apologizing to Kami-sama, and then I saw the cat ("I have a name, you know," Koneko muttered) and I was relieved for a second, and just has I started telling Kami-sama that I didn't actually want to be reincarnated as a—"

And again, Naruto was cut off, but this time by the teacher's glare. God huffed. "Well, maybe next time. Surely he will say it next time."

A few hours later, when Naruto had ignored what the doctors had said and went to eat ramen, God got a little impatient with trying to find out what exactly Naruto wished to be in his next life, and put the suggestion into Ayame's mind to ask the blonde about what he wanted to be reincarnated as.

"Say, Naruto-kun. What do you want to be reincarnated as?"

"Huh? Why do you ask?"

"Um...I dunno, curiosity?"

'Be glad you aren't a cat...' Naruto shrugged. "Well, if I ever die, the one thing that I think would be really cool to be reincarnated as—I've been thinking about it for a long time, so I really hope Kami-sama honors this—well, I really hope to be a—"

"NARUTO! What did the doctors say about eating ramen!?"

"Waaaaah! Iruka-sensei!? Where did you come from!?"

"You're going home right now, mister! And you will be eating a plate of fruit tonight—absolutely NO cup ramen!"

"Iruuuuuka-seeeenseeeeeeiiii, you're so meeeean!"

God hit his head against a rather hard cloud that happened to be floating by.

He may never know.

_End._

Right. And there's the bloopers. I hope you enjoyed yourself! Remember, please leave a vote for pairings in chapter 1 (read the rules if you don't know them)!

Love you.

Review.

Hearts.


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